When installing an HVAC system in a house, building or other facility under construction, an important step is to locate the positions of HVAC boots, vents, and vent registers for supplying and returning air within the internal structure of the building. In new construction, the designation of where the boots will be placed may be done before sheetrock is placed on the walls and ceiling and before the floor is installed on the subfloor. When siting these positions for HVAC boots, a worker will use a tape measure and straightedge to trace out the position for the HVAC boot. At a later time, a hole will be cut in the floor for the HVAC boot around the position that has been traced and the boot will be inserted into the newly defined hole.
The defining of the positions for an HVAC boot with a straightedge and tape measure can be time consuming and the opportunity for inaccuracies in defining a location may be great. For example, in new construction, the worker laying out the position of the HVAC boots on a floor or subfloor must take into consideration the depth of the sheetrock used on the wall as well as the size of the molding used at the baseboard between the wall and floor. Similarly, if a worker is defining a position of an HVAC vent on a sheetrocked wall, the worker has to take into consideration the depth of the floor which will be placed on the subfloor as well as the height of the molding used for the baseboard around the bottom of the wall next to the floor. If such considerations are not taken, the placement of the position for the HVAC vent may be inaccurate causing a reworking of not only the position of the HVAC vent but possibly the subflooring, flooring or sheetrock, depending on the location of the vent.
This “roughing-in” for position of an HVAC boot is a time consuming task. Further, as stated above, the opportunity for an imperfect placement such as a crooked placement or placements which interfere with the molding around a wall happen all too often when the HVAC installer uses a tape measure and a straightedge to define the position. It is often easy to misalign the straightedge or miss-mark the position for the boot or vent using a tape measure.
The same problem often occurs for installations of boots in ceiling positions in new construction sites. The position may be marked along the trusses of the ceiling before sheetrock is placed over the ceiling. The vent is then placed between trusses in the ceiling before the sheetrock is installed. For such an installment, a hole is cut in the sheetrock where the boot is located once the sheetrock is installed. In certain situations, the vent will be positioned wrong. For example, such occurrences may happen due to the installer not understanding the width of the molding that will be placed along the ceiling and corresponding wall, or due to the indecision of the owner of the premises who may decide at a later date to have different size moldings. To correct his misplacements of the boots, the installer of the HVAC will have to cut into the molding, creating an unsightly divot in the molding. In the alterative, the installer will have to cut through the sheetrock and move the boot to a position further from the wall.
In both floor vents and ceiling vents, it is preferable to have the vent closer to the wall for circulation purposes and, for the floor vent, to prevent from interfering with travel lanes within the building. By having the vent in the ceiling closer to the wall the air flows down around the wall and circulates into the room better than if the vent was placed in the center of the wall. Also, such a placement is more aesthetically pleasing and less intrusive than if such a vent was placed in the middle of the room. So weighing the concerns of placing the vent close to the wall while at the same time not interfering with possible molding or baseboards placed around the ceiling and floor is a major concern for HVAC system installers.
Therefore, a need exists for a tool that can increase the efficiency for designating the positions of both supply and return vents and boots within a new construction site as well as for deciding positions for such boots in existing buildings. Such a tool could help decrease the amount of inaccurate boot placements as well as the amount of time which is needed to site the locations for such boots and vents. By increasing the efficiency by reducing the amount of time needed to define locations for the vents and boots as well as eliminating the need for reworking such locations for inaccurate positions, the cost for installation of such HVAC systems can decrease greatly.